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V-Day Project – Helping Women All Over the World

2/01/09

News 4U Magazine
by Ashley Sollars

As a woman, I enjoy freedoms that even my great-grandmothers could not imagine. Being born in a place like the United States has allowed me to choose my own path – even though I am female. And though I have been fortunate enough to vote, marry who I wanted and live without constant fear of violent acts, I do not live under the notion that I am immune to being hurt. And the sad truth remains that women all over the world have been severely tortured and even killed just because of the fact that they were born as the “weaker sex.”

In 1996, playwright, Eve Ensler wrote something that has spawned a surplus of negative connotations. After interviewing hundreds of women, Ensler fashioned a series of soliloquies about women’s experiences and entitled the collection: The Vagina Monologues. Though “VM” has had more than a few critics, what it has inspired is undoubtedly good. In 1998, Ensler hosted what would become a global movement – V-Day.

V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual slavery.*

In its initial showing at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom, actresses like: Susan Sarandon, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Whoopi Goldberg and many more helped raise over $250,000 for NYC anti-violence groups.

What is so interesting about the VM is that it has become the cornerstone of the grassroots movement that V-Day has become. Student and community groups from all over the world perform the monologues for both local and international women’s charities – helping to not only bring attention to but also stop the wide-scale atrocities committed against women and girls.

When the VM was first introduced to the Owensboro community, it was not accepted with open arms. Kentucky Wesleyan theatre professor, Joy Pace, understood the social impact that this play could have but in its first performances was kept underground. After several years of struggle, The Merely Players first performed VM in 2006. On February 26-28 at 9 p.m. each night, Owensboro’s own Merely Players will perform the controversial play at Equals Bar.

According to the play’s director, Randi Shamsabadi, each year Ensler writes new monologues for local groups to end the performance. Shamsabadi chose a story about five transgender women who have faced unimaginable confusion and social isolation. This year, Ensler also chose to spotlight the plight of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “It’s a gamete of emotions; in some of the women’s stories the vagina is a place of sorrow and torture where others it is a place of life. Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s gut-wrenching. This play has really opened my eyes to a lot of things. It’s uninhibited ‘girl talk.’”

Tickets are $5 each with 50% going to New Beginnings Sexual Assault Support Services in Owensboro and 50% going to the national V-Day charity. Please visit www.vday.org to find out more about how you can help women all over the world, or call New Beginnings at (270) 926-7273‎ to make a direct donation. (21 and over only).